I reached the starting point at 4:45 AM and met up with Ashutosh, Ravish, Rahul & Ram from RH group. The Full Marathon was kicked off at 5:00 and after cheering Kalpana, we lined up somewhere in the middle of the crowd to start our run at 5:15. We started well on the OMR (Old Mahabalipuram Road) .. The race route (absolutely flat for the most part) took us south on OMR from the starting point, took a U turn towards north after a Kilometer or so. We were on the OMR for about 3Km. Ravish, Rahul. Ashutosh and I ran together and we all felt that the conditions were quite humid. In fact, my shirt was already soaked with sweat at 3k Point. By the time we got on to Adayar flyover, it started raining heavily and we ran in the rain for 3 or 4km. We maintained a pace of 6.30 min/km although it felt like we were running at much faster pace due to extreme humidity.
We got onto the Marina Beach road after 8Km and it was such a beautiful experience running on it looking at the ocean for about 8km (4 km out and back). The four of us finished 10k in 66 minutes and were doing well. At that point, I made a biggest blunder by skipping the water stop. I assume that they would make us take a U turn at 105 Km which meant that I could get some water at 11km mark on my way back. When I reached 10.5 point, I realized that the U turn was 1.5 KM away without any aid station which is very different from other events I ran this year. This also meant that I had to run for 5km without water and I was already feeling exhausted due to dehydration by then. I slowed down significantly couldn't keep up pace with Rahul and Ravish from then. Ashutosh and I decided to pace each other and we ran the next 7 km from 12th to 19th. This was certainly the toughest part of the race.
The 10k event got kicked off at 7 AM with 8000 participants and we met most of them on Adayar flyover (at the 19th km). At one point, it became very difficult to navigate through a sea of runners coming in the opposite direction. Once we crossed the flyover, we ran the next 2k at a decent pace and finished off strongly. Overall, I must say that it was the toughest I have run so far due to unfamiliar weather conditions and It was also most satisfactory for the same reason. I didn't have any expectations in terms of timing for this run, but finished pretty close to my Hyderabad's timing. I must thank Ashutosh for sticking with me. He may have sacrificed 2 mins because of that.. We spent the rest of the day meeting friends in Chennai and celebrated the run with a hot sambar vada at Saravana Bhavan before boarding onto Shatabdi at 530 in the evening..
I must also say that the arrangements in terms of support (water, electral, bananas and biscuits) and people cheering was excellent. As we ran through Mylapore and on the Marina beach road, we were cheered by lots of residents in that area. This was very different compared to Hyderabad where there were hardly any locals on the road other than our own Cyrus & Zahver's family and my in-laws. We also had lots of volunteers from Wipro and from Chennai runners club cheer us throughout the run.
A few take learnings I took away from this run are-
· Pay more attention to the route map to internalize the locations of various aid stations
· In humid conditions, maintain a hydration rhythm of drinking a couple of sips of water every 2 or 2.5 kms.
· Carry a small water bottle with you as a back especially in humid conditions (mumbai, chennai, auroville)
· In humid conditions, maintain a hydration rhythm of drinking a couple of sips of water every 2 or 2.5 kms.
· Carry a small water bottle with you as a back especially in humid conditions (mumbai, chennai, auroville)
